Log, Stuck and Two Sleeping Hours

Wireline life is always full of surprise. When i first subsribe to this kind of life, what i knew is that we dip our tool to downhole well, gather data and produce good log. Pretty much sound like an easy job yeah? But then.. i was completely wrong!!

Putting the tool downhole in a open hole section in fact, is like sending your space craft right to the center of the black hole. You did not know whats exactly going on down there..

The formation can collapse at any time.. And often sticky! Stickier than japanese natto! And if the formation itself is depleted, with a huge differential pressure, or.. if the driller is fancy enough to make an S-type well with a high deviation and severe dog legs, or even like a spiral well… Then your tool or cable can get stuck!

In this kind of case, apparently.. wireliners need to switch itself to be a fisherman! Thats exactly what just happened to me last time. We went fishing on the weekend in the sea! But not just any fish! Its a big fish! 15 m long and ~1500 lbs in weight! A wireline tool “fish”. Its almost a size of an adult humpback whale, only lighter – at 2/100 of original humpback whale weight which is around 36 Tons!. To imagine how big it is.. , i put the photo taken by Todd Bretl below (http://www.flickr.com/photos/tbretl/ )

Anyway.. since my fish is a metal-made and not a living creatures that can swim freely in the sea, the technique we use for this is a bit different than conventional fishing. Its a bit similar to the spear fishing technique. But instead of using a sharp spear gun, we use a drillpipe with a wireline overshot assembly in the bottom to engage the fish.

And as what everyone said about fishing, that it needs patience. The wireline fishing indeed needs very much a patience. Especially when the tool stuck position is like thousand meters below.. We spend 2 days to shoot the fish, then another 1 day to bring it back to surface, and only 2 hours of sleep a day on average. Which.. indeed surprised myself again on the fact that its doable!! hahaha.. Though of course after this, i was pretty battered and therefore sleep hours and hours to recover. lol :p

One thing i learn though.. SLEEP WHENEVER YOU CAN!! Ability to sleep wherever and whenever is a must in this kind of job! haha..

Last but not least.. i was joking about a spiral-like well. Of course no-one would love to imitate the roller coaster track down there. The tool will not appreciate the fun of sliding as us…